


Gravity

by MirrorMystic



Category: Persona 5
Genre: F/F, Polyamory, Post-Canon
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2018-02-24
Updated: 2018-02-24
Packaged: 2019-03-23 08:21:33
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 3,032
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/13783545
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/MirrorMystic/pseuds/MirrorMystic
Summary: They spun in different orbits, but they both revolved around her.(Or: Makoto has an angel and a devil on her shoulders, but who's who can be hard to say.)





	Gravity

**Author's Note:**

> I've written plenty of polythieves stuff featuring Ann as a center of romantic gravity, but let's not forget that Makoto has a pull all her own. Can be seen as taking place alongside "Looking For Group", if you like, but works just as well on its own.
> 
> I hope you all enjoy the read. ^^

~*~  
  
It began so simply.  
  
It doesn’t take much. A drop of rain that heralds a flood; a pebble that triggers a landslide. On that day, like the shot that began the American Revolution, there was a shot heard around the world- and it was the ringing clack of a shogi tile into place.  
  
“Check,” Hifumi declared, a bit louder than she really needed to. The other students in the university cafeteria paid her little mind; they’d had the better part of a year to grow unfazed by Hifumi’s theatrics.  
  
Her opponent frowned, a fretful hand to her chin. And while she studied the board, Hifumi studied her.  
  
Sunlight streamed through the cafeteria’s floor-length windows and settled in the girl’s hair. Hifumi was quite taken with her, all told. Pretty, poised, a regal bearing. That, and she’d walked right up to Hifumi’s table and asked for a game, despite Hifumi’s… reputation. Nobody else on this campus had done that, not since-  
  
“Mako-chan!”  
  
The girl squealed as Makoto arrived. She pulled Makoto into an embrace, taking Makoto’s hand in hers. The moment unspooled before Hifumi’s studious gaze, Hifumi scrutinizing it as if it were a move in a game.  
  
Just when Hifumi was feeling the first tug of impatience in her chest, Makoto turned to her, and offered her hand.  
  
“Mako,” Hifumi murmured, brushing a kiss to Makoto’s knuckles.  
  
“Fumi,” Makoto purred, cupping Hifumi’s cheek. “I see you got started without me.”  
  
“Oh, it was a lovely game!” The other girl- Haru- chirped. “Even if I can’t stand up to a master.”  
  
“Flatterer,” Hifumi preened.  
  
Makoto settled in at the side of the table, studying the board. Months of practice with Hifumi had sharpened her shogi skills. She knew the theory, even if her execution still needed work.  
  
“Oh, Haru…” Makoto tsked, shaking her head. “She’s got you cornered.”  
  
“If I had known you two knew each other, I would have gone easy on you,” Hifumi said.  
  
“Nonsense,” Haru waved the idea away, smiling. “I won’t back down from a challenge.”  
  
There was something in Haru’s eyes- a flicker, a spark- that made Hifumi’s heart catch in her chest.  
  
_A challenge._  
  
Hifumi swallowed. Is _that_ what this was?  
  
“It’s your move,” Hifumi said levelly. “Do you concede?”  
  
Haru smiled sweetly.  
  
“Never.”  
  
~*~  
  
“How long have you two known each other?”  
  
Hifumi looked up, meeting Haru’s eyes. Her thoughts buzzed in her head. The tactician in her- one might argue the cynic in her- wondered if this was some sort of trap. But there was a softness in Haru’s gaze, a softness right at home with her pastel sundress and gentle lamplight.  
  
She couldn’t lie to those eyes.  
  
“...Not long,” Hifumi admitted. “Less than a year.”  
  
“Last semester, I was in the cafeteria and saw her sitting with her shogi board,” Makoto explained. “I supposed I would ask for a game.”  
  
“You were the _only_ one who did,” Hifumi said ruefully. “My reputation precedes me, it seems. Nobody wants to play me. Not even a casual game. Apparently they’re all afraid of bruised egos.”  
  
Hifumi reached out and patted Makoto’s hand.  
  
“Mako here was the only one who rose to the challenge,” Hifumi said proudly.  
  
Makoto scoffed, smiling. “...Fumi, I’ve played you every week this semester, and you’ve beaten me every single time.”  
  
“But you’re the only one who put up a fight,” Hifumi smiled.  
  
“She _does_ do that,” Haru agreed.  
  
Hifumi’s lip quirked in something that wasn’t quite a frown, abruptly remembering that Haru was here, too. She could feel a twinge of… something, in her chest.  
  
It was an ugly feeling. She shoved it down.  
  
“How about you?” Hifumi asked, trying to be gracious.  
  
“We went to high school together,” Makoto stepped in. “Although, we weren’t very close until senior year.”  
  
Haru nodded, unusually somber. “Yes. That was a… difficult… time.”  
  
Haru stared down at her hands folded in her lap. Makoto reached out and placed a hand on Haru’s knee. Their eyes met, brimming with the weight of history and intimacy that Hifumi wasn’t privy to. The truth of that burned in Hifumi’s chest. She took a sip of tea, and willed her attention elsewhere.  
  
Haru’s room was like something out of a fairy tale. There was a curtained four-poster bed with silk sheets, lace doilies on her dressers, a tea set of fine lacquered ceramic. The walls were decorated with a leafy, floral theme, and strings of lights climbed the walls like ivy. Beady lights shone like fireflies, or pixies in the woods.  
  
“Do you like it?” Haru asked, following Hifumi’s eyes.  
  
“It’s… magical,” Hifumi said, with no little awe.  
  
“I commissioned a friend to do the painting,” Haru explained. “He did a lovely job, didn’t he?”  
  
“That was just your excuse to pay for Yusuke’s groceries for a year,” Makoto smiled.  
  
“Everyone in our circle is so adamantly against ‘handouts’,” Haru tutted. “He’s no right to be living on bean sprouts when I have money to spare.”  
  
“Wait, wait,” Hifumi cut in. “Yusuke? Yusuke Kitagawa?”  
  
“Yes, do you know him?”  
  
“I went to high school with him,” Hifumi nodded. “We… weren’t close. But I remember seeing him, at a corner table in the cafeteria. He’d be sketching, watching people go by, making picture frames with his fingers…”  
  
Haru and Makoto nodded, knowingly. That sure sounded like Yusuke.  
  
“He had a… reputation,” Hifumi said carefully. “He was a bit of an eccentric. I didn’t talk to him much. I don’t think anybody did. He seemed so… lonely.”  
  
A somber quiet settled around the group.  
  
“Like you?” Makoto ventured. Hifumi opened her mouth, as if to answer. Closed it again.  
  
“Like _us_ ,” Haru said softly.  
  
Makoto pressed a hand to Hifumi’s knee.  
  
“Not anymore,” she said, resolute, her red eyes glinting in the light.  
  
Hifumi worked her jaw, but she didn’t know what to say. She raised her fine china teacup to her lips and took a sip, letting it join the rest of the warmth blooming through her chest.  
  
~*~  
  
Tea with Haru became a habit, just as shogi after class had become. It was serene, soothing, and strange. Being with somebody simply to enjoy their company came strangely to Hifumi, who saw competition in everything.  
  
Part of her hated that about herself. The other, well…  
  
“Checkmate!” Hifumi announced as her tile came crashing down, the thrill of battle rushing through her veins.  
  
Makoto sighed and sank into her chair, pawing at her face in frustration.  
  
“...You know…” Makoto sagged in defeat, “...I really thought I had you on the ropes, there.”  
  
“You did,” Hifumi admitted, resetting the board. “But you left yourself open to counter-attack.”  
  
“Every time,” Makoto shook her head. She grinned. “I’ll get you someday. I swear.”  
  
“Now, now,” Haru chided, as she and Makoto switched seats, “it’s not all about winning.”  
  
“It’s a _little_  about winning,” Makoto and Hifumi said together. They grinned.  
  
“No,” Haru said sweetly. “It’s about pushing each other up. It’s about getting better, together.”  
  
Hifumi gazed at Haru, searching her eyes for that spark, that threat, finding nothing. She shrugged.  
  
“Well, let’s see how much better you’ve gotten,” Hifumi smiled impishly. “Your move.”  
  
~*~  
  
Time flew by. Shogi games after class and tea time at Haru’s became phone calls, lunch dates, shopping trips. One brisk winter weekend found the three of them wandering the mall, Haru and Hifumi both with an arm looped around Makoto’s, tugging her towards this store or that.  
  
“Just remember,” Haru chirped, as they walked. “Neither of you is paying a single yen today. That’s the rule. It’s been decided.”  
  
“You don’t have to pay for me, too,” Hifumi insisted.  
  
“Forget it, Fumi,” Makoto chuckled. “She’s not gonna budge.”  
  
Haru saw something across the plaza, and her face lit up. Haru squealed and darted off to a stand of scarves, Makoto and Hifumi trailing behind her.  
  
“I’m a little out of my element,” Hifumi confided in Makoto, while Haru was busy blissfully rubbing a scarf against her cheek. “I’ve never had much mind for fashion.”  
  
“Really? What about that one dress of yours?”  
  
“Which one?”  
  
“The one with the orange and blue…?”  
  
“Oh,” Hifumi groaned, scornful. “ _That_ garish thing. I hate that dress. The only reason I ever wear it is because my mother picked it out for me.”  
  
“I hear that,” Makoto smiled. “When I told everyone that most of my clothes were from Sae insisting on picking out a ‘practical’ wardrobe, I just about gave Ann a heart attack.”  
  
Haru returned, only to drape a scarf around both their shoulders and tie it into a ribbon. Haru beamed, clapped her hands together, and darted back into the sea of color.  
  
Makoto watched her go with the utmost fondness. Hifumi smiled, and moved to untangle themselves from the scarf tying them together, but Makoto stopped her with a hand on her shoulder. Hifumi reached up and squeezed Makoto’s hand.  
  
“She’s cute when she’s excited,” Hifumi said, nodding in Haru’s direction.  
  
“So are you,” Makoto said.  
  
Hifumi preened. “...Well. I’m not sure ‘cute’ is the word I’d use…”  
  
“Passionate, then?” Makoto suggested. “Intense, maybe?”  
  
Hifumi smiled an impish smile.  
  
“Why?” she asked. “Could you use a little… _intensity_?”  
  
Makoto just laughed and tugged Hifumi along, following Haru’s voice like birdsong down the aisles.  
  
~*~  
  
Makoto frowned, twisting and turning in the dressing room mirror.  
  
“You don’t like it?” Haru asked softly, trying not to sound too disappointed.  
  
Makoto toyed with her cuffs, dressed in black trousers, a white button-up dress shirt, a stark crimson tie, and an incredibly garish vest- black silk, with golden dragons snaking up her chest.  
  
“...The vest is a little much,” Makoto admitted.  
  
“Aww,” Haru pouted. “I’m sorry, Mako.”  
  
Makoto smiled. “It’s alright. I’ll keep looking.”  
  
Makoto shrugged off the vest and set it aside. She undid her tie, and let it hang from her collar while she unbuttoned her dress shirt.  
  
Makoto sighed at the tell-tale click of a phone camera.  
  
“Fumi,” she said wearily.  
  
“What’s wrong, Mako?” Hifumi asked innocently from her seat beside Haru, the two of them grinning like jackals. “Was it a long day at the office?”  
  
“You are insufferable,” Makoto shook her head, smiling.  
  
Hifumi whistled as the rest of Makoto’s shirt came off, exposing the cut lines of her biceps.  
  
“Wow, Mako,” Hifumi breathed. “Where do you hide those arms?”  
  
“In my sleeves,” Makoto said, deadpan. She pulled on her original blouse and gathered a bundle of tried-on clothes in her arms.  
  
“I’m gonna put these back,” she said, and stepped out.  
  
Hifumi sat back, admiring the photo she’d taken. Makoto in a dress shirt with her tie hanging from her collar, the top three buttons undone. Haru tucked her chin on Hifumi’s shoulder and Hifumi tilted her phone so she could see.  
  
“She looks lovely,” Haru cooed. She and Hifumi shared glances and conspiring smiles.  
  
“Did you pick out that outfit just so she’d have to take it off again?” Hifumi asked.  
  
“I’d never be so _devious_ ,” Haru teased, a hand to her chest. “...Although… I don’t understand. I honestly thought she’d like the vest. I thought Mako loved dragons. She’s always going on about ‘Like a Dragon’...”  
  
“Oh, those are video games,” Hifumi explained. “And a movie, I think.”  
  
“And you play a dragon?” Haru asked.  
  
“...Er… no. You play a yakuza.”  
  
“That doesn’t sound nearly as exciting…” Haru frowned. She shrugged, and patted a bundle beside her. “Now, then. I picked out an outfit for you, too, Fumi-chan. It was only fair, after you and Mako put together this one for me.”  
  
Hifumi smiled, taking in Haru’s form. White leggings, a pink sweater of hand-spun wool with big wooden buttons, a pair of half-gloves with embroidered roses on the backs. It wasn’t too unlike Haru’s usual choice of leggings and sweater, but the materials were different. Homier. Closer to earth.  
  
“I didn’t know you were into mori kei,” Hifumi said.  
  
“I certainly could be,” Haru smiled. “I look ready to frolic in the woods.”  
  
“Like something out of a fairy tale,” Hifumi offered.  
  
Haru beamed. She threw her arms around Hifumi’s waist and squeezed.  
  
“Flatterer,” Haru teased. She took the bundle off the bench beside her and shoved it into Hifumi’s arms. “But enough about me. Try it on! I hope you like it.”  
  
‘It’ wound up being a dress that was little more than a sleeveless sheath of black fabric that scarcely reached Hifumi’s knees, but flared out in the back like wings. Two streaks of gleaming midnight blue ran up the flared edges of the skirt and trailed a double helix up her stomach before arcing up her bustline and over her shoulders.  The black fabric shimmered in the light, as if it were full of stars.  
  
Hifumi turned, admiring herself in the mirror, while Haru studied her, nodding along.  
  
“Oh, Haru…” Hifumi breathed, smoothing the fabric along her legs. “...it’s… it’s…”  
  
Hifumi saw the tag. She made a face.  
  
“...it’s twelve thousand yen,” Hifumi muttered.  
  
“Don’t worry about that,” Haru tutted. She handed Hifumi a box. “Here. These are for you, too.”  
  
Hifumi blinked. Apparently, Haru had thought her outfit just wouldn’t be complete without a pair of knee-high boots with platform heels. Haru had more faith in her ankles than she did.  
  
Haru clapped with delight as Hifumi pulled them on and laced them up. She stood and helped Hifumi to her feet.  
  
“Are you alright?” Haru asked.  
  
Hifumi wobbled precariously. “Um… well, I love the dress. But I’m not sure about these boots.”  
  
“They are a bit high, aren’t they?” Haru fretted. “Do you want to take them off?”  
  
“It’s okay, I’ve got it, I’ve got- oh!”  
  
Hifumi tripped, and stumbled forward. Her hand shot out to stop her fall, and thudded into the wall over Haru’s shoulder.  
  
Haru’s heart caught in her throat. She was cornered, penned in by Hifumi’s arm, and abruptly aware of just how flattering a dress she’d chosen for her. Their eyes met and held for a smouldering moment. They were panting, so close they could feel each other’s breath on their lips.  
  
There was a tell-tale click of a phone camera.  
  
“Honestly,” Makoto tutted, grinning. “I leave you two alone for ten minutes…”  
  
Hifumi all-but screamed in mortified outrage. She swiped at Makoto’s phone, tripping over her heels in her haste. Makoto laughed and and held her phone just out of reach, darting back out into the aisles. Hifumi chased after her, yelling incoherent threats.  
  
“Mako, wait!” Haru called out, pulling out her phone. “Send me that photo!”  
  
~*~  
  
“Since when do you know the first thing about blindfolds?” Hifumi asked, while Haru carefully looped the length of fabric around her eyes. “Or any of this stuff, really?”  
  
“I dabble,” Haru said lightly.  
  
“You _dabble_?”  
  
“Is that so strange?” Haru asked. “There’s a certain appeal. Not worrying about control, just surrendering yourself utterly to someone you trust completely…”  
  
“Uh-huh.”  
  
Hifumi sat, in darkness, listening to the cafeteria bustle around her. Moments later, she heard Haru’s chair scrape back, a pair of wet, exaggerated cheek kisses, and Makoto’s schoolbag thumping onto the bench beside her.  
  
“Fumi. Why are you blindfolded.”  
  
“We were just discussing some entry-level bondage,” Haru chirped, as if she were talking about the weather.  
  
“ _Why?_ ” Makoto sighed.  
  
“Because I made a joke about being able to win even while blindfolded,” Hifumi said, gesturing to her shogi board. She tugged her blindfold up onto her forehead. “Then Haru had to _escalate_.”  
  
“You always win!” Haru pouted. “If you don’t play with some kind of handicap, then we’ll never get to go where _I_ want.”  
  
Makoto smiled, leaning back in her chair, relishing how even the slightest move she made in their peripheral vision made Haru and Hifumi’s eyes snap to her.  
  
“So, ladies. How are we spending our evening?” Makoto asked.  
  
“ _I_ wanted to go to the park,” Haru said. “Fumi just wanted to stay inside all night.”  
  
“Like _you_ could say no to blankets and binge-watching,” Hifumi drawled.  
  
Haru shrugged. Hifumi wasn’t wrong.  
  
“...I suppose the blindfold will have to wait until next time,” Haru sighed, studying the board. “No handicap will be enough to salvage _this_ game.”  
  
Makoto scrutinized the board, grimacing in sympathy.  
  
“...Oh, yeah. Yeah, it doesn’t look good.”  
  
“Finish me, then,” Haru sighed with operatic grandeur. “There’s only one way for this to end.”  
  
“Do you concede?” Hifumi asked, a smile teasing at her lips, while Makoto watched, stifling her laughter.  
  
“Never,” Haru said. “I’ll never bow to you.”  
  
“You’ve fought with honor,” Hifumi declared, rising to her feet. “But if you will not surrender… then you leave me with no choice.”  
  
Hifumi scooped a shogi tile off the board and held it up to the light.  
  
“This is the end for you!” Hifumi shrieked. “ ** _Perish!_** ”  
  
Hifumi slammed her tile into place with an echoing snap. She stood, her chest heaving, adrenaline surging through her limbs. Her eyes met Makoto’s.  
  
“So dramatic,” Makoto smiled.  
  
“You love it,” Hifumi purred.  
  
Haru sighed, sagging in defeat. Slowly, she got to her feet.  
  
“Well played,” Haru said. “Thank you for the game.”  
  
Haru took Hifumi’s hand, and Hifumi let her, thinking she was going to shake it. Instead, with a sudden, mischievous smirk, Haru lifted Hifumi’s hand to her lips and pressed a kiss to her knuckles.  
  
The thrill of competition filling Hifumi’s veins abruptly became something else entirely. She gasped, her heart thudding in her chest. She realized she was blushing, and she buried her face in her collar.  
  
Haru smiled, smug. “You’re cute when you’re excited.”  
  
Hifumi huffed, pouting. Makoto leaned in and gave her a peck on the cheek.

“Better luck next time,” Makoto teased.  
  
Makoto slung her bag over her shoulder and got to her feet. Haru clung to her arm.  
  
After a moment, they turned, meeting Hifumi’s eyes.  
  
“...Well?” Makoto asked. “We better get going. The park closes at sunset.”  
  
Hifumi tried not to sound too eager. “...And then Netflix after?”  
  
Makoto laughed. “Come on…”  
  
The trio fell into step with each other as they strode off campus, Makoto leading the way, Haru and Hifumi at her heels, caught in each other's gravity like the earth, the sun, and the stars.  
  
~*~


End file.
